I noticed most of the times my old NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT video card's fan is quiet in KDE v3.5.10 with Compiz. When I exit out of X to text mode console, my fan will spin up louder. Is this normal? I am using the latest NVIDIA driver binaries, compiled from its .run files, in Debian (Kernel v2.6.32-...). Obviously, I can't read my sensors -f for NVIDIA in text mode since NVIDIA driver isn't in used like in X.

What about power usage? Does using text console use less power than GUI mode? Do you know? I would assume yes without 3D stuff, accerelation, etc.?

I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what clocks and performance settings the video card defaults to without the X nvidia driver. Of course in text mode the GPUs won't be getting slammed as hard as in a video game or the like, so it would be using less power (watts) in that sense.

I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what clocks and performance settings the video card defaults to without the X nvidia driver. Of course in text mode the GPUs won't be getting slammed as hard as in a video game or the like, so it would be using less power (watts) in that sense.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a way to make the fan not spin up high in text mode.

I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what clocks and performance settings the video card defaults to without the X nvidia driver. Of course in text mode the GPUs won't be getting slammed as hard as in a video game or the like, so it would be using less power (watts) in that sense.

Reading your post I suspect I might have put a finger on a more general issue that what I suspected, therefore you can help me if you'd kindly make a few tests for me. If your card registers behave in the same way as mine, it would mean that you should be able to control your fanspeed with a similar procedure, although it's always a little bit dangerous for the card.

After you leave X (when your fan speed climbs to 100%), it could be that the proprietary nvidia module is removed from your kernel, or it could be that it remains loaded. You can know this by trying

Code:

lsmod|grep nvidia

as root.

If nvidia is not loaded, then please try

Code:

modprobe nvidia

and tell me if your fan speed goes down or not.

You can then unload the driver with the following command:

Code:

rmmod nvidia

(still as root)

If you have a few more minutes to waste, you can then install the nvclock package through aptitude, and use it to compare the state of your GPU registers in different configurations.

1) X started and nvidia driver loaded
2) X not started and nvidia driver loaded
3) X not started and nvidia driver not loaded

In order to retrieve the values in your GPU registers, you can use the command

Code:

nvclock -D

as root, and post the result here for each case 1), 2) and 3).

I read below you are using Stable. If that is the case, you should still be able to launch the the venerable free driver nv. Then, you should also be able to make the same study in two more cases:

4) X started and nv drivers loaded (need to adjust xorg.conf)
5) X not started and nv drivers loaded

Reading your post I suspect I might have put a finger on a more general issue that what I suspected, therefore you can help me if you'd kindly make a few tests for me. If your card registers behave in the same way as mine, it would mean that you should be able to control your fanspeed with a similar procedure, although it's always a little bit dangerous for the card.

After you leave X (when your fan speed climbs to 100%), it could be that the proprietary nvidia module is removed from your kernel, or it could be that it remains loaded. You can know this by trying

Code:

lsmod|grep nvidia

as root.

If nvidia is not loaded, then please try

Code:

modprobe nvidia

and tell me if your fan speed goes down or not.

You can then unload the driver with the following command:

Code:

rmmod nvidia

(still as root)

If you have a few more minutes to waste, you can then install the nvclock package through aptitude, and use it to compare the state of your GPU registers in different configurations.

1) X started and nvidia driver loaded
2) X not started and nvidia driver loaded
3) X not started and nvidia driver not loaded

In order to retrieve the values in your GPU registers, you can use the command

Code:

nvclock -D

as root, and post the result here for each case 1), 2) and 3).

I read below you are using Stable. If that is the case, you should still be able to launch the the venerable free driver nv. Then, you should also be able to make the same study in two more cases:

4) X started and nv drivers loaded (need to adjust xorg.conf)
5) X not started and nv drivers loaded

I don't think I can make my video card fan spin up in X. I can only do that outside of X in console mode.

First, if I understand well, your lsmod output shows that nvidia remains loaded in the kernel even after you stop X. This means your fan stops being regulated becuase X is stopped, although the nvidia driver is still loaded. This is also the situation I get natively with my 9600GT.

You have similar registers to mine in situations where the fan is at max speed. The funny thing is that you have them in both outputs that you post. But if you can check your copy-paste, it seems you have mixed it up so that I don't know which is which.

Anyway, it could be also that your fanspeed is automatically regulated under X without the help of the registers.

If you have the time to retry and post the output of nvclock -D, or correct what you posted below, it would be helpful.

Now, if your goal is to reduce the noise of your GPU fan when you don't have X running, I could help you, but the operation might be a little dangerous (not for you, but for your video card, maybe). I of course wouldn't take any responsabilty (I'd only take the glory if it works out fine in the end).

And also not that simple, since it would involve changing the source code of nvclock, compiling a patched version and trying it on your card. All I can tell you it that it worked on my GPU yesterday, and that it's still working today. Mine is a different model, but you seem to have the same fan-related registers, and the code of nvclock suggests that they are to be handled the same way.

(but if it does not work, we may have a chance to make it anyway by playing with e114 and e118 instead of e11c and e120)

If you want to go this route, one important thing that you will have to check is whether your registers are inverted or not. I know nvclock will treat your card just like mine in everything that is fan-related. For my card, nvclock assumes they are inverted, but in fact they're not. This means if I did nvclock -F -f 100, I would stop the fan of my video card...

So (still assuming you'd like to take the rather hackish route I propose), first try the following command:

Code:

nvclock -F -f 50

. As long as you have a value of 1 in the register e11c as you have posted, you will be kicked out by the following error message:

Code:

Error: Your card doesn't support fanspeed adjustments!

Just for the sake of curiosity, I would try that both under X and without X started.

If it works in one case or the other, you should be able to determine whether you registers are inverted or not by changing the value 50 to 75 and/or 25 and seeing what effect it has (when I do it myself under X with nvidia drivers and an unpatched nvclock, the fan speed is changed for a brief moment before nvidia regulates it back to 35%).

Then, the follow-up would be to patch nvclock like I explain in the other post, compile and try it to reduce your fan speed. If it works, we should be able to find the right configuration file where to put it so that it gets called twice whenever you leave X.

First, if I understand well, your lsmod output shows that nvidia remains loaded in the kernel even after you stop X. This means your fan stops being regulated becuase X is stopped, although the nvidia driver is still loaded. This is also the situation I get natively with my 9600GT.

You have similar registers to mine in situations where the fan is at max speed. The funny thing is that you have them in both outputs that you post. But if you can check your copy-paste, it seems you have mixed it up so that I don't know which is which.

Anyway, it could be also that your fanspeed is automatically regulated under X without the help of the registers.

If you have the time to retry and post the output of nvclock -D, or correct what you posted below, it would be helpful.

Now, if your goal is to reduce the noise of your GPU fan when you don't have X running, I could help you, but the operation might be a little dangerous (not for you, but for your video card, maybe). I of course wouldn't take any responsabilty (I'd only take the glory if it works out fine in the end).

And also not that simple, since it would involve changing the source code of nvclock, compiling a patched version and trying it on your card. All I can tell you it that it worked on my GPU yesterday, and that it's still working today. Mine is a different model, but you seem to have the same fan-related registers, and the code of nvclock suggests that they are to be handled the same way.

(but if it does not work, we may have a chance to make it anyway by playing with e114 and e118 instead of e11c and e120)

If you want to go this route, one important thing that you will have to check is whether your registers are inverted or not. I know nvclock will treat your card just like mine in everything that is fan-related. For my card, nvclock assumes they are inverted, but in fact they're not. This means if I did nvclock -F -f 100, I would stop the fan of my video card...

So (still assuming you'd like to take the rather hackish route I propose), first try the following command:

Code:

nvclock -F -f 50

. As long as you have a value of 1 in the register e11c as you have posted, you will be kicked out by the following error message:

Code:

Error: Your card doesn't support fanspeed adjustments!

Just for the sake of curiosity, I would try that both under X and without X started.

If it works in one case or the other, you should be able to determine whether you registers are inverted or not by changing the value 50 to 75 and/or 25 and seeing what effect it has (when I do it myself under X with nvidia drivers and an unpatched nvclock, the fan speed is changed for a brief moment before nvidia regulates it back to 35%).

Then, the follow-up would be to patch nvclock like I explain in the other post, compile and try it to reduce your fan speed. If it works, we should be able to find the right configuration file where to put it so that it gets called twice whenever you leave X.

Eh, I will pass and not risk it. I already to RMA this EVGA video card (GeForce 7950 GT KO and this model) twice in the past (3 years) and don't want to do it again! I will just stay in X to keep the fan quieter and use less power.

As for "lsmod|grep nvidia" duplicate results. One was in X and other was outside of X. It made no differences on my PC.

Since I was upgrading my Kernel package (not a new version), I decided to exit in console and idle for a few minutes and heard the fan spin up. After rebooting and idling in console (don't boot to X) for over half of a day, I heard no fan spin up. After I loaded up X with startx command and then exit X back to console, then I heard the fan spin up. Weird!